


Entanglement

by Adina



Category: Sharing Knife - Lois McMaster Bujold
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-12-16
Updated: 2007-12-16
Packaged: 2018-01-25 02:13:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,836
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1626146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Adina/pseuds/Adina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Almost dying has consequences, if not anything you would have expected.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Entanglement

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Quasar

 

 

Saun surfaced from ill-remembered dreams to the feel of a strong, firm hand on his cock.

He smiled as he drowsed, not quite ready to wake up. Dion considered sex the only civilized way to wake someone, barring an emergency, and on the rare occasions that he was awake before Saun he liked to encourage by example. Let Dion work for his example, Saun decided; he had another hour of sleep coming. Besides, Dion became wonderfully inventive if thwarted, not that he seemed to be going for finesse this time--the hand on his cock was fast and urgent. A particularly hard squeeze made Saun gasp, waking pain in his abused ribs, but the hand didn't even pause, which was sufficiently un-Dion-like to bring Saun fully awake.

He was alone in bed.

He was alone in bed, but he could still feel a hand on his cock, still feel the thumb tracing just under its head. Mortified, he tried to close down his groundsense--he hadn't gotten stuck in someone else's masturbation since he was thirteen, and it was embarrassing enough then--but he couldn't shut the feeling out. Arousal built until he couldn't remember why he wanted to shut it out, and then exploded in white sparks.

As quickly as that it was over. He was breathing hard, sated, yet with no physical sign of arousal, let alone completion. Whatever he had intruded on was no tender, lengthy pleasuring of a lover, but an abrupt, almost perfunctory release of tension. He would _not_ speculate on whose.

***

Dirla dropped in an hour or so later with his breakfast, after he was properly awake. "Did you hear about Dag's farmer girl?" she asked while he picked at porridge that was better than anything Dirla cooked on patrol, infinitely better than plunkin, but which still failed to arouse an appetite.

"Farmer girl?" he asked, giving the porridge another stir, as if that would lend him hunger he didn't feel. He forced down another bite.

Dirla positively gloated at the chance to be the first with news. "Dag rode in yesterday with this farmer girl--you must have seen her, he hasn't let her get five feet away since they got here! Said she did for the malice. Might be true, she has blight marks--" She gestured at her neck.

"I've _seen_ her," Saun said slowly, giving the porridge another stir. "I thought she worked here." Those eyes, that smile--it was the smile that had really gotten him. "Thought you were hiding the prettiest maids from me."

"Pretty?" Dirla looked doubtful. "Looked like your standard farmer house mouse to me, but maybe I like men too much to be any judge." She gave a wry smile. "I thought you did too."

***

He woke out of yet another nap that afternoon just in time to see the door swing shut behind Dag. He drew in a breath to yell after him--and then used it to swear, quietly, as his ribs protested the use.

***

The hand on his cock was back the next morning. After a brief and unsuccessful attempt to close his ground to it he gave in. It felt good, and it wasn't like he was hurting anyone, not even himself, not really.

If only his unknown benefactor would slow the blight down! His rhythm was, if anything, faster than yesterday, his grip tighter, his focus entirely on his cock. Saun closed his eyes and raised his own hands to his chest, pinching his nipples and then rubbing the ache away. With his eyes closed he could imagine that the hand was Dion's, a quick grope before they had to go on patrol. He had given Dion a much more leisurely send off before Dion left Hickory Lake camp. Sometimes he regretted not going with Dion or convincing him to stop at Hickory Lake, but old Morlan made it quite clear that he thought they needed time apart to grow up.

The hand was even faster now and Saun was gasping, shuddering in time to its strokes. It was good, so good, absent gods it was good!

And then it was over, gone in a soft, lethargic haze. He was still enjoying the boneless relaxation when Mari walked in with his breakfast.

"Hey, boy," she greeted, kicking the door shut with her heel. "How are you feeling this morning?" She put yet another bowl of porridge down on the table beside his bed.

"Better." It was true. He felt much better this morning than last--Dag must have reinforced his ground when he visited the day before while Saun was sleeping. His ribs hadn't objected to his vicarious exertions at all. Mari looked skeptical all the same.

"Have you been breathing deep?" she asked sternly. His blush gave her entirely the wrong idea. "Blight and blast it, boy, do you want to drown in your own juices?"

He knew the danger of pneumonia with broken ribs, but he could hardly tell Mari how he'd been breathing--or rather why. "I have, really, I know," he protested.

"Hmph." She laid a hand on his chest, none too gently. "Lie still." Her eyes went vague for a moment while she matched ground, then sharpened with a lifted brow. "Huh. No fluid. You're damn lucky." He opened his mouth to protest again and she glared it down. "I know it hurts, but you've got to do it. Every hour, a couple of minute of full breaths or a few good coughs. Clutch a pillow to your chest, it helps." He knew all that, but nodded obediently anyway. "You're doing pretty well, all things considered." Considering he'd been dead, of course. "Someone reinforce your ground this morning?"

He shook his head. "Dag did yesterday while I was sleeping, I think."

"Huh. Would've thought it was more recent." She shrugged and shifted as if about to leave. "Anyway, Chato and I have to go squeeze more supplies from the farmers. Two patrols went out to cover the neglected territories, so give a holler to the walking wounded if you need anything." She was almost out the door when she turned back. "And eat!"

He was still prodding at the half-eaten bowl of now-cold porridge with a spoon when a head peeked in his doorway. When she saw he was awake Dag's farmer girl popped in entirely.

"Hi." She ducked her head shyly. "Everyone's out, so I thought I would see if you needed anything."

She was pretty enough in a fresh faced, healthy sort of way, but not nearly as beautiful as he remembered. She looked, really, like every other farmer girl he'd ever ridden past without a second glance. On the other hand, if she wanted to be useful--

"You could take this back to the kitchen for me," he said, holding out the bowl.

She took it, looking down at its contents dubiously. "Dag--" A faint line appeared between her brows. "Dag said that a ground reinforcement--like he did yesterday?" He nodded. Where she was going with this was anyone's guess. "He said it...reminded the body of how to be healthy and...encouraged it to use its own resources to heal itself." He nodded again, resigned. "Resources includes food doesn't it?"

He shrugged and gave her a rueful grin. Trust Dag to find a smart one. "I'm not really hungry."

She gave him a dubious look, gave the bowl an even more dubious one, and then suddenly dimpled, looking almost as beautiful as he'd originally thought her. "I'll be right back," she said before dashing off.

When she returned she was still carrying the blighted bowl, or one just like it, but now it was gently steaming. Hot at least was more palatable than cold, since apparently he wasn't going to escape eating the stuff.

Except when he reluctantly accepted the bowl it looked and smelled like no porridge he'd ever eaten. Someone had mixed lumps in--dried fruit, a prod with the spoon revealed--and covered it with a generous helping of cream. A rather more enthusiastic taste found it had been sweetened with maple sugar.

"My aunt says the appetite has to be tempted while sick," she said. "She used to make it for me and--and my brothers when we were sick." Some dark thought distracted her for a minute. "Besides," she said with forced cheer, "Raisins build blood."

That sounded like a farmer superstition to Saun. Liver built blood, everyone knew that, but fruit? Besides-- "I haven't lost any blood," he said around a hastily swallowed mouthful. The bowl was almost half empty and it had started out full again.

"No, that's true." She stared at his chest with a thoughtful frown that suggested she'd heard the whole story. How much _had_ Dag told her? She shrugged. "Can't hurt, I suppose, and it tastes good."

"Very." He smiled his thanks and was rewarded with another in return.

"I'll come back later and get the bowl," she said with a final smile before heading to the door.

***

By the third morning the ground entanglement was almost familiar, comforting. The flickers of interest from his own cock at the second-hand stimulation was also comforting, even if full arousal was still out of the question. Mari had told him, brusqueness covering embarrassment, that such impairment was inevitable but temporary. She wouldn't have been his first--or even hundredth--choice to ask about the matter, but she hadn't waited to be asked. If not exactly grateful, he was still impressed with her dedication to a patrol leader's duty.

Still, his own unarousable state didn't prevent him from enjoying the other's. He had woken up earlier this time, before the other man had hardly gotten started. The pace was fast, but not yet frenetic. Saun lifted his hand to play with his nipples again, something the other neglected. At the touch, the phantom hand on his cock stilled, and Saun felt a sense of shock, second hand, and embarrassment, his own. Absent gods, was the other man feeling him? If the ground entanglement was going both ways it was stronger than Saun thought, stronger than he thought possible. Mingling grounds, culminating in ground-lock for the unwary and unfortunate, was common, easy, when the people were touching. But from a dozen or more feet away, with a solid farmer-built wall between?

The other man's hand moved to his chest, tweaking a nipple. Taking that as encouragement, or at least permission, Saun mirrored his actions on the other nipple. It felt peculiar but good: the other man's nipple was more sensitive than his own, being teased by feather-light touches that Saun would hardly have felt. He pinched his own nipple for contrast and gasped, though whether with his own lungs or the other man's he couldn't say.

The other hand reached across to rub the nipple Saun had just pinched. Both hands on the same nipple were even stranger, and not in a particularly good way--he could feel the other hand and its fingers on his chest, but his own hand passed right through it--so he switched his attentions to the other side. The start of surprise felt me him laugh.

The sky was lightening outside Saun's east-facing window. He teased a line down his body to his still unresponsive cock, hoping the other man would take the hint. Whoever he was, he was a patroller, and neither Mari nor Chato was the sort to let their patrollers loll in bed after the sun was up.

The other man seemed aware of the press of time as he set a thoughtful but steady pace. Saun let his hand roam, caressing his own body, knowing the other would feel it. Trailing a finger down his neck to his shoulder prompted a convulsive tightening of the grasp on his/their cock that made them gasp in unison. Saun repeated the move, wishing he could trace the same path with his tongue, could blow along the dampened skin. He wanted--he need to touch--

The other man sped his pace, racing the rising sun, until Saun could only lie back, gasping. With a final moan, they came, tumbling Saun back into the depths of sleep.

When he next woke the sun was well up and Dag's farmer girl was just leaving his room. "Oh, hey--" he called rather stupidly. Name, her name, had Dirla told him the girl's name?

"Oh! You're awake!" She gave an odd little dip, like a standing stumble. "I brought you breakfast." The bowl when she gave it to him was more of the porridge with fruit and cream and maple sugar. "I took some to Reela too. She didn't lose blood either, so I guess the raisins won't do her any more good than you."

More of that farmer superstition, but she dimpled as she said it, and really for a farmer she was friendly and even rather pretty. "Thank you," he said, rather belatedly given how much he'd already eaten.

"You're welcome." Again with the dimples. "Mari and Chato took what Dag calls the walking wounded to gather supplies. I said I would look after you and Reela."

Shaming the farmer ingrates with the obvious cost of their safety--Saun could only be grateful his own injury wasn't visible enough for that duty.

She was still standing there, watching him with a rather quizzical expression on her face when he finished eating. "Are you bored?" she asked when he handed the bowl back. "Or do you think you can sleep some more? I can stay and talk if you want."

He never had heard the full story of how the malice was destroyed. Dirla's jumbled tale--he shook his head. "I think I'm slept out for the moment."

***

The next morning he slept through until Dag's farmer girl woke him with breakfast. Dag's patrol was still out, would be until late the next day, so his mystery partner was probably among them. Even eliminating the women, that still left ten or so prospective partners. If he was one of the Hickory Lake patrollers, Saun had plenty of time to find out who. If he was one of Chato's patrollers--well, Saun was walking around the lake, no one would take it amiss if he moved on to a new camp.

Dag's farmer girl--Fawn, her name was Fawn, he had to remember that--came around frequently that day and the next to ask if he needed anything--food, drink, more pillows, even relief from boredom--treating Reela with equal solicitude. The sheer amount of attention was staggering.

"--even healers don't...cosset," he found himself explaining to a curious Fawn when she returned from the bath-house, laughing and rather damp after helping Reela bathe. "Longhop says it's not her job to encourage people to remain sick."

"But no one wants to remain sick," Fawn protested. She frowned and reconsidered. "Well, hardly anyone. Your ribs won't heal faster because you're bored and ill-fed and impatient to get out of bed." She gave him a look worthy of Mari at her sternest. "If you hurt yourself trying to do too much too soon you'll be even longer in bed." She had escorted him to the bath-house earlier that day, insisting on walking at his elbow, although how she thought she could catch him if he fell he had no idea.

"I'm not--" he started to protest, but she rode over him.

"It's like Dag's hair," she said. He blinked, trying to figure out what hair, Dag's or anyone else's, had to do with injuries or ribs. She had helped Saun rebraid his own hair after his bath, but Dag didn't even _have_ much hair. She shook her head. "Dag cuts his hair very short because he can't braid it one-handed and he doesn't want to ask anyone to do it for him."

He hadn't thought about it, but it made sense. "Well, of course not. You wouldn't want to be constantly asking people for favors after all."

"Why not?" she asked as if she really didn't know. "My aunt is the best weaver and spinner in West Blue," she added when he didn't answer. "She's also blind. Couldn't tell blue wool from yellow if you gave her a year in bright sun. If someone helps her with the colors she makes the most beautiful cloth you ever saw. Without the help she'd fret herself to death for feeling useless."

"Dag wouldn't be useless even with no hands at all," Saun said. "His groundsense--" He could only shake his head in admiration.

"His groundsense?" She latched onto any tidbit about Dag with eager curiosity.

He opened his mouth and then shut it as he tried to figure out how to explain groundsense to a farmer--and whether he should even try.

"I know what groundsense is," she said impatiently. "But I thought everyone's--every Lakewalker's--was pretty much the same."

"Oh, no. Some people are hardly better than farmers!" She scowled slightly at that, but it wasn't his fault that farmers had no more groundsense than rocks. "But some--Dag--he's something special." She smiled at that and he realized again just how pretty she was. "When I first met him--"

"How long have you known him?" she interrupted.

"Only a month or two," he said. It seemed much longer, like he had known Dag all his life. "I'm not from Hickory Lake Camp, you know. My camp, Bonemarsh Camp, is four or five days' ride west of Hickory Lake. I was starting to walk around the lakes--" He paused and she nodded understanding. "Mari's patrol was just leaving when I got to Hickory Lake, so I decided to go with them." And Dion had kept walking....

"But what about Dag?" she asked.

"Oh, well-- Right, Dag and his groundsense," he veered back onto the subject. "My _first_ impression of him was as one of those grumpy old fellows who never talk except to criticize you. You know the sort?"

"Oh, yes." Her smile, somewhat crooked, suggested she knew only too well.

"He rode or walked in the back and never spoke much." Actually Saun had barely noticed him, too sunk in his own misery at losing Dion. "The light began to dawn for me when Mari set him at the cap--" As he told her of discovering Dag's true range, twice Saun's, an odd feeling began growing in him: irritation, irritation at _himself_ , for talking to her, talking to her so freely and easily. With it came an almost overwhelming awareness of her presence, from her boundless curiosity to her bare feet resting on his bed. If she were male and not a farmer he would have thought he was feeling guilty on Dion's behalf, but that was impossible.

When Dag tapped on the door frame it all fell into place. Dag was wide open, more open than Saun had ever seen him. Saun tried to block out the maelstrom of emotion pouring off him, but it was like Saun was feeling them himself, like they were Saun's own. Dag was his mystery partner, he realized. Dag wasn't really wide open, he was shut down to almost nothing, but something connected them at a level that could not be blocked.

Dag asked something and Saun answered, evidently satisfying the older patroller even if Saun couldn't remember either question or answer.

He might have thought the connection love, love deeper and more basic than he and Dion, if he couldn't feel Dag's welling emotions towards Fawn, a bludgeoning force stronger than that farmer-slave's sledgehammer.

Dag was saying something to Fawn now, something that sent her scampering down the hall. After she left he stood there for a moment, jealousy lurking beneath some more rational consideration, before turning to go with a friendly wave.

"Oh, Dag?" Saun couldn't resist calling. "Old patroller?" Morlan had given Saun the usual warnings about farmer girls--and boys even more so--but Dag was old enough to know his own mind.

Dag turned back. "Yes?"

"No need for the fishy glower. All your pet Spark wants to hear are Dag tales." Saun barely managed not to laugh out loud while Dag stalked off like an offended cat. He had mostly gotten his snickers under control before Mari poked her head into his room.

"Dag found his farmer girl?" she asked, coming all the way in and shutting the door behind her.

"Went off together," he said. "To the stables, I think he said." From Mari's expression she knew of the attachment and found it much less amusing than he did.

She nodded. "I awarded her that spare horse they rode in on," she said, still looking uncomfortable. "She's not a patroller, and I hope the horse doesn't give her the idea she is, but she did do for the malice, or so Dag says."

Why was she telling him this? He decided Morlan's advice was good for something after all and kept his mouth shut.

"Ribs are coming along about as well as you can expect," she said, lifting her chin to point towards his chest. "Be another month or two until you're back on patrol, though." He nodded, knowing just how ready his ribs weren't for anything approaching battle, or even a hard patrol. "I'm minded to send you with Dag. He needs to be at Hickory Lake on--on a matter--and he insists on taking that girl home with him. Talks of detouring by her home, in fact. I'm not minded to leave him by his lonesome in farmer territory, especially not with a farmer girl at his side, and you're the only one I can spare."

Saun blanched at the idea of being in Dag and Fawn's company for a couple of weeks, like being the fifth leg on a horse. And if Mari thought he could get between them! "No, ma'am!" He quailed at her expression, then realized he had the perfect excuse. "Dag and me--we have some kind of ground entanglement going on. He went in fast and dirty when he started my heart, he said--"

"--and you think it was a little too fast and a lot too dirty." She scowled.

"Well, not too fast, since I'm alive," he corrected. "But something like that. I can't block his ground out at all, even when we're both closed down."

She was still scowling, rubbing her forehead like it hurt. "It happens. Only cure is time apart."

"That's what I thought." That's what he hoped, at least.

Closing her eyes, she rubbed at the bridge of her nose. "Right." She shook her head and then opened her eyes again. "Chato is getting a wagon for Reela, plans to leave her down at the ford, pick her up on their way back. You want to go with them? I'm not more minded to leave you alone in farmer territory than Dag."

He nodded. "And Dag?"

"Will just have to manage."

 


End file.
